Glenn Beck Would Have Hated Martin Luther King

Steve Benen is my hero of the day for saying what needs to be said:

As anti-government zealots assemble in the nation's capital for a rally intended to glorify a deranged, self-described rodeo clown, it's worth emphasizing a simple truth: Glenn Beck would have really hated Martin Luther King, Jr.

Beck recently told his minions, "Damn it, we will reclaim the civil rights [movement]. We will take that movement because we were the people who did it in the first place!"

It's hard to overstate how blisteringly stupid this is.

King's "I Have A Dream" speech was 47 years ago tomorrow, and over the years since its delivery, King has taken his place in the pantheon of legendary American heroes. His iconic status was hard-earned, and well deserved. But to argue that the civil rights movement that King helped lead was a product of right-wing activists who hate government and domestic social programs, is to stray so far from reality that it's hard to even capture it with words.

Americans wisely revere the King legacy now, but a half-century ago, Beck's conservative predecessors loathed the civil rights leader. The right-wing snake-oil salesmen whose shtick Beck is borrowing now used words like "communist" and "radical" to dismiss King and his movement.

I saw King's speech on television when I was 11. During the sixties, I also saw on television church bombings, beatings, Klan rallies, and generally vicious CONSERVATIVE assaults on blacks who were demanding their constitutional rights. Beck's attempt to co-opt the civil rights movement is an outrage, pure and simple.

Glenn Beck is a national disgrace, a con man, a self-promoting huckster, a lying sack of sh*t, and a general waste of skin.

However, I don't wish to be critical.